Feminized Breeding Question

[tetragrammaton]

Before I ask my question, I'd like to disclaim I am not a breeder and have never made any sort of cross in my life. I've only grown from regular seeds, clones, and feminized seeds. I've only grown sinsemilla, and any male plant that I've had was eliminated as soon as detected.

I'd also like to disclaim, that some of our "fears and concerns" regarding feminized seeds over a decade ago, have came true, especially where I live. Feminized seeds are virtually all that's available. Luckily, there are seed banks and individuals here (MAD RESPECT) that still sell regular seeds, so it's not as if they aren't available. But for me, and many people where I live, it is much cheaper, easier and immediate (within walking distance if you live anywhere in the city), and safe (no issues with scammers, or things getting lost or seized in the mail, etc...) to purchase feminized seeds.

While I am not a breeder, nor have ever made a cross in my life, it is not something that is out of the question in the future.

From what I understand, feminized seeds are made (or at least were made back in the day) by applying something such as colloidal silver, so the natural female plant will grow male flowers and self polinate. From my understanding and please correct me if I'm wrong, those are called S1s, and contain just the DNA of the normal female plant since it polinized itself. I also am under the understanding that in controlled indoor environments, it's not uncommon for a female plant grown a little past it's maturity to throw a male flower or two out and self polinate. I believe Soma talked about this in one of his books.

With all of that out of the way, I present you the following question. Can a female plant grown from feminized seed be stressed via collodial silver or other means to produce male flowers with pollen, and be used to pollinate another female plant grown from feminized or regular seed? Will the resulting seeds from that cross if possible be feminized in addition to having a wide variety of phenos in the resulting seeds?

For example, my favorite strain to grow (and one of my favorite strains of all time) is Green Poison from Sweet Seeds. I'm not growing it at the time, and when and if I do grow Green Poison again I don't plan on doing any crosses, but this is a hypothetical scenerio. If I stress that Green Poison to produce male flowers and pollen, can I pollenize another female plant be it from regular or feminized seed and have gauranteed feminized seeds considering the pollen the other female plant would be recieving is also pure female genetics? I realize there will be a great deal of variation in the resulting seeds from that cross if it's even possible, and that if I find something special that I like, I will have to clone it, likely make S1's, or cross it to something stable, and take years of backcrossing in order to get it stable, but as stated, I'm not a breeder, and don't have any actual plans at the moment to experiment with breeding, but I am curious for future reference.

With that question asked, I'd also like to disclaim that in my personal experience, I have never had ANY hermies with any modern day feminized seeds, which I remember was one of the fears (and realities at the time) and one of the reasons a lot of people at the time (a decade ago, when they first started becoming a "thing", and likely a majority to this day) look down on feminized seeds.

Peace and Love,
Tetra

 

[troutman]

Unless the plant to be feminized is 100% homozygous which I doubt exists. There will be some variations in the offspring
from its seeds. But it should be a lot less than crossing 2 regular plants. Only a clone will give you the same genetics. I
don't grow feminized seeds. But am breeding a regular strain and know enough about breeding to get by. Just have fun
and make your own seeds. Most if not all of the best strains available today were made by small growers. So don't
think you need a huge farm to breed. That's what Big Business want us to think.

Good Luck

 

[Elmer Bud]

G`day Tetra G

K if it will herm under stress DON`T use it to make seeds .
The ones that won`t throw balls under stress are the ones you want . They are less likely to bite you on the ass later with more herms .

Then get the chems from E bay or such and knock yourself out . Lots of info on STS and reversing here .

 

[tetragrammaton]

G`day Tetra G

K if it will herm under stress DON`T use it to make seeds .
The ones that won`t throw balls under stress are the ones you want . They are less likely to bite you on the ass later with more herms .

Then get the chems from E bay or such and knock yourself out . Lots of info on STS and reversing here .

Oh, let me clarify. I'm talking about stressing them on PURPOSE in order to throw out some nanners.

In my experience, I have never had a feminized seed that hermied, ever. But I only started growing feminized seeds in 2014. Prior to that, I'd grow regular seeds like everyone else, mostly genetics created by forum members, some of which were fucking phemonenal. Shoutout to British Hempire and Slips wherever you are for those phenomenal genetics.

Back in the day, I remember feminized seeds being highly looked down upon because apparently a lot were prone to be hermies, or hermying under the slightest stress. Well, that was over a decade ago, and just like technology, cannabis seems to be advancing at just a quick of a rate, and as stated, I, nor any fellow growers I know have had an issue with feminized seeds being 100% female plants. I have never grown any Greenhouse Seeds genetics however. (yes, that was shade)

I'll give two much better hypothetical examples that will hopefully clear up my question.

If I intentionally apply colloidal silver (please advise me if something new or "better" is the most preferred/common way to achieve this) to a small bud or branch on a female plant from a feminized seed in order for the plant to produce "male" flowers, collect the pollen, and then use it pollinate another female plant of feminized seed, is it probable that those resulting seeds from the cross will be feminized as well? I realize that there will be a variety of phenos from the cross, but as stated on post 2 by troutman, less than if it was a cross from plants grown from regular non-feminized seeds.

In order to ask the above question, I also am asking if the pollen from doing this is viable IE; will it pollinate another plant aside from itself if that.

If so, and this is able to be done, I believe it could be beneficial and save a lot of time pheno hunting for the desired result of your cross. You could simply plant a much smaller number, clone them and label them obviously, flower them out, find "the one" and then once you find the hybrid you are looking for between your two crosses, simply grow it from clone from that point forward.

Peace and Love,
Tetra

P.S. Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far to this question, and to all future contributors.

 

[Cvh]

You're better off with STS instead of Colloidal Silver. It's much more powerful then CS and as easy and cheap to make. You can just order all the stuff on Amazon, Ebay,...etc. It's what the pro's use.
Here is a good thread about the subject.

STS (Silver Thiosulfate Solution)
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=357407

Be sure to read all the pages. I have personally posted many pictures in this thread about the progress and progeny testing of my personal attempt. It's all very easy to do. Post questions/issues into that thread, there are many great and experienced people that will help you out.

 

[Cvh]

If I intentionally apply colloidal silver (please advise me if something new or "better" is the most preferred/common way to achieve this) to a small bud or branch on a female plant from a feminized seed in order for the plant to produce "male" flowers, collect the pollen, and then use it pollinate another female plant of feminized seed, is it probable that those resulting seeds from the cross will be feminized as well?

Yes.

The pollen contains only XX genes. The other female plant has also only XX genes. The Y chromosome is missing so all the offspring will be female. And yes the resulting cross will show the same phenotypical offspring as you would cross a male and female plant. In both scenarios 50% of both parent plants are mixed.

 

[tetragrammaton]

You're better off with STS instead of Colloidal Silver. It's much more powerful then CS and as easy and cheap to make. You can just order all the stuff on Amazon, Ebay,...etc. It's what the pro's use.
Here is a good thread about the subject.

STS (Silver Thiosulfate Solution)
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=357407

Be sure to read all the pages. I have personally posted many pictures in this thread about the progress and progeny testing of my personal attempt. It's all very easy to do. Post questions/issues into that thread, there are many great and experienced people that will help you out.

Thank you so much, tomorrow night I will stay up learning all I can on the subject, but now that I know that there is a product much better on the market than colloidal silver to achieve my desired results, will the pollen from the female grown from feminized seed be viable in order to be used to pollinate another female plant (in my case, another female plant from feminized seed, but any female plant in general)?

If so, as I stated, I believe this can be beneficial to people not only to people in my circumstances to where virtually all that is available is feminized seeds who may want to do their own crosses, but to virtually anyone who wants to make their own cross without having to deal with males. It would cut a lot of time away, especially if using your preserved favorite pheno of said female strains from feminized seeds.

Once again, thank you all for the very helpful information, and thanks in advanced to the future contributors who hopefully will be able to answer my questions more in detail, perhaps some people who have done this themselves, and hopefully the trolls and haters of feminized seeds in general can live and let live and not ruin this thread with negativity.

Peace and Love,
Tetra

EDIT: Cvh answered my question regarding if the pollen would be viable and if the resulting seeds would be female, as I was in the process of typing this post. Thank you Cvh.

 

[tetragrammaton]

Yes.

The pollen contains only XX genes. The other female plant has also only XX genes. The Y chromosome is missing so all the offspring will be female. And yes the resulting cross will show the same phenotypical offspring as you would cross a male and female plant. In both scenarios 50% of both parent plants are mixed.

Well unfortunately I can't give you any more rep at the moment, but you definitely deserve it. Thank you so much for answering my question. You have been extremely helpful in this thread. Much love and respect.

 

[Cvh]

 

[tetragrammaton]

If anyone has attempted such a cross, and had success, or failure, or even mixed results, I'd be very interested in hearing your experience. Especially regarding the pheno ratio. By that I mean, I'm assuming some are mostly like female A, and some are mostly like female B, but then there will be what I'm assuming to be at least a few different phenos carrying desirable traits of both parents.

 

[El Timbo]

With all of that out of the way, I present you the following question. Can a female plant grown from feminized seed be stressed via collodial silver or other means to produce male flowers with pollen, and be used to pollinate another female plant grown from feminized or regular seed? Will the resulting seeds from that cross if possible be feminized in addition to having a wide variety of phenos in the resulting seeds?

Yes you can do that and many seed companies do it. As a buyer I find it a quite attractive option as I know (assume) that the seed maker has used 2 excellent females.

The second part of the question - about variation - depends on the genetics of the 2 parents. If they are both originally from true breeding stock you will be making a feminised F1 and there should be little variation but if they are both hybrids you will have similar variation to a traditional female hybrid x male hybrid pairing.

 

[El Timbo]

will the pollen from the female grown from feminized seed be viable in order to be used to pollinate another female plant (in my case, another female plant from feminized seed, but any female plant in general)?

That depends on the individual plant - some plants (male or female) don't produce viable pollen. And some females can't be induced to produce pollen.

 

[Mohadib]

First of all, you have to differentiate between 1. stressing a female plant into producing male flowers and 2. causing it to produce male flowers by affecting it's hormonal balance by applying substances such as CS or STS.

When the procution of feminized seeds started, it was done by stressing the plants into producing male flowers. That worked best with females that were genetically predisposed to react the most to the applied methods. The problem is, that this predisposition is often inherited by the (femenized) offspring. In consequence, the resulting plants often show this trait as soon as they get even lightly stressed. That's the reason feminized seeds were said to hermie much more often than regular ones.
CS and STS work on a hormonal level. They cause the production of male flowers even on plants that are very resistant against stress induced methods. In order to produce femenized seeds that do not show an increased tendency to sexually change, the plants are (ideally) stress-tested before being used for seed production. That's why many or most feminized seeds you can buy today are not more prone to hermie than any other seeds.

Now, to answer your questions:
Yes, the seeds that result from pollinating a female plant with pollen that's the result of applying CS or STS to any female plant (no matter if it's the same plant or another) will result in femenized offspring - there's simply no male genes in that pollen that could produce male plants (although there have been reports on male plants resulting femenized pollen).

And yes, IF the pollen you get from applying CL or STS on a female plant is viable, it's viable. The pollen doesn't differentiate between the plants it's pollinating. If it works on the plant it comes from (which would be called an S1) it works on any other plant as well.
When you produce S1s by hitting a plant with it's own pollen, the phenotypic difference in the offspring won't be as big, because the gene pool it's created from is that of a single plant.
However, when you use your pollen to hit another female with it and hence create a feminized "F1s", the phenotypic diversity in the offspring is just as broad as with any regular seeds, since it's gene pool is a mixture of two genetically different plants, as it's in any regular cross.

And a last 'yes': Working with femenized pollen can be a short cut when it comes to creating plants that carry the traits of their parents / ancestors, because - unlike with male plants - you "know what you're working with".

 

[tetragrammaton]

First of all, you have to differentiate between 1. stressing a female plant into producing male flowers and 2. causing it to produce male flowers by affecting it's hormonal balance by applying substances such as CS or STS.

Thank you, apart from the additional information you provided which was extremely useful, what I quoted and boldened is what I was intending on doing. I made the mistake of thinking that it was a form of "stressing" the plant. I'm glad you pointed this out, as I didn't know there was a difference. I was incorrectly using the word "stressing" as an umbrella term including the methods you listed. CS, and as I was recently informed of, STS.

As had been said, I wouldn't want to start with a female plant, feminized or regular, that would be prone to turning hermie under something such as minor light stress, etc...

This is all very good news to me, and I have suspected that seed companies have been doing this for a while, especially the seed companies that ONLY sell feminized seeds, yet have many new hybrids as well as autoflowering varieties of the same strains.

This really does make things much easier for the personal grower who is interested in experimenting with making their first cross, and having it guaranteed to be female no matter what, and at least be just as good as one of the parents especially if using two very stable feminized strains with no more than two phenos if that. I feel this could also be a good way to get people interested in "actual breeding", using regular male and female plants, and creating their own actual strains, and hopefully find something unique and interesting.

Peace and Love,
Tetra

 

[Cvh]

^^Correct CS/STS works on a (localized) hormonal level. All other techniques work by stressing the plant to show undesirable hermie traits. These stressing techniques should not be used to reverse a female plant.

CS/STS works by locally blocking out the micronutrient copper resulting into the localized inability to produce the plant hormone Ethylene. Literally a hack.
(Note the word localized. You can reverse also a single site onto your plant to have it pollinate itself. Make female S1 seeds with only a single plant.)

Here is some info I posted into the past about how CS/STS works and it's reaction with copper and how it blocks Ethylene.

Here is some info I found about how STS works.
Maybe this will clear some of the confusion about STS in correlation with hermaphrodism.

STS: Silver thiosulfate, a salt compound used in photography. In plants, silver interferes with, or locks out, copper, which is a necessary micronutrient. Making copper unavailable inteferes with ethylene signaling, and reduces expression of traits that are dependent on high levels of ethylene, such as female sex expression and fruit ripening.

Copper: a micronutrient that is necessary to assist certain enzymes in their function. Copper can become toxic at low levels, but a few parts per billion is adequate for plants to express their genetic potential. Because copper is needed at such low levels, it does not take much silver to overwhelm the available copper load and exert its effect.

Ethylene: One of the 5 plant hormones. The levels and ratios of these 5 hormones has a huge impact on the shape, strucutre, aroma, flavor, flowering time, and disease resistance of the plant. Hormones are the chemical messengers that allow DNA to 'talk' to plant tissues and determine the phenotype. Ethylene is primarily involved in flowering, sex determination, fruit ripening, and sensescence (rot). Ethylene is a simple organic molecule, C2 H4, which can also be represented as H2C=CH2.
In cannabis, female plants will produce male flowers if not enough ethylene is present, or if too much gibberellic acid is present. The intersex condition is due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Some plants will not turn male under the most extreme stress, and some plants, especially stretchy tropical sativas, will turn with no stress at all.

 

[tetragrammaton]

Thank you all so much for the quick and great responses! Next season I will definitely be trying this out.

 

[El Timbo]

As had been said, I wouldn't want to start with a female plant, feminized or regular, that would be prone to turning hermie under something such as minor light stress, etc...

For this reason responsible breeders put their potential fem parents through various stress tests before they begin.

 

[MJPassion]

Somas method of stressing females until they produce pollen sacks is called rhodelization.
It was famous for producing progeny that produced more hermaphroditic plants than the current and accepted way of producing female pollen using hormone blocking/enhancing chemicals.

 

[Douglas.Curtis]

For this reason responsible breeders put their potential fem parents through various stress tests before they begin.

Definitely an essential step. While your success with non-hermi feminized seeds has been good to date, be prepared for a good 10+ years of hermie-prone genetics to be floating around.

MANY, MANY, MANY growers are making feminized seeds without stressing and culling hermies first. Let's stress test those ladies to the extreme, yeah?